The Vital Principle of Forgiveness:

Forgiveness is one of the vital principles found in the Lord’s Model Prayer for us in Matthew 6:9-13.  The Savior taught us to pray:  “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  The word “debts” is used as a general term for sins.  The word literally means “things we ought to have done.”  Toward God it means such things as the sad fact that we ought to have been thankful, but instead we were discontent and full of complaining.  We ought to have prayed but instead we worried and despaired.  We ought to have loved the Lord Jesus with all of our hearts, instead we were enamored with the world’s trinkets and pleasures that distract us and defile us.  Toward others it means we ought to have been patient and understanding, instead we became bitter and cynical. We ought to have fought the good fight of faith and honored God; instead we gave in to the enemy’s temptation.  To pray, “Forgive us our debts” also means to confess that we ought to have helped others and borne their burdens but instead we acted selfish and “passed by on the other side” like the priest and the Levite who ignored the man lying half dead on the road to Jericho.  One of the principles here taught by the Son of God is that to ask God to forgive us, we need to be of the disposition that we forgive others.

Since this is the way that God deals with us we can see why any believer can make this confession: “When I get angry or bitter at someone and won’t forgive them or distance myself from them or put up a wall on my side, I do not feel near to God. When I tear down the wall on my side by a forgiving spirit, God reveals himself to me again and I know the nearness of God. Otherwise I am moving down the path to isolation—from God as well as others. It seems like I am carrying my burdens all alone—laboring all alone. Here God is teaching me that if I want the comfort and help of His sustaining presence then I need to forgive others!”  Have we learned this lesson?  To learn it and live by it makes us a channel of mercy.  If this is true of you—if you practice a forgiving spirit toward others, then this benediction rests upon your head: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”